Immigration reform would help Colorado

As a Colorado-based immigration attorney for more than 35 years, I am disappointed and frustrated by the resistance to immigration reform in the House of Representatives.

If only they could see what I do every day: The current system is criminalizing good people and businesses. Workers who are essential to our economy are threatened with deportation. Employers are forced to double as immigration cops. Who, exactly, benefits from this?

If a "pathway to citizenship" is considered a bridge too far, a route to legal work status would at least recognize reality. Today, Colorado is home to roughly 180,000 unauthorized immigrants, based on recent research compiled in 2010 by the Pew Research Hispanic Center. Many came in the 1990s, when the economy was welcoming and documentation relaxed. Today, they are essential to our agriculture, ranching, tourism and service industries. Colorado's agricultural base would collapse without workers who are in this country without documentation.

While "border security" represents powerful imagery, the reality is that future illegal entries and "overstays" are being caught by constant improvements in the computer technologies of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and by the E-Verify worker verification system. In other words, illegal entry is being curbed effectively. In fact, Colorado's number of undocumented workers has declined from its high of 240,000 in 2007, according to the Pew research.

Instead, our attention should be on removing the criminalizing nature of the system and recognizing the value of those already here. As Rep. Mike Coffman recently pointed out in The Denver Post, 40 percent of workers without documentation came to the U.S. legally and simply did not leave. These "overstays" have seeded our tax base and benefits system. To deprive them of the legitimate fruits of their labor now is no less than a modern form of slavery.

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Here are a few of the many ways the system is destructive:

I have a client who came to Colorado in 1994 and is still working as a nurse on the night shift. For 20 years she has paid taxes and contributed to Social Security and Medicare. Now 75 years old, she cannot retire or collect Medicare because she is not documented. I have no way to get her legal status.

I have represented more than 100 employers in Colorado, others nationwide, who became entangled in the complex regulatory demands of Form I-9 and E-Verify, the government's worker eligibility verification system. When undocumented workers slip by and get hired (about 10 percent do), or the I-9 form is processed improperly, businesses are exposed to severe employer sanctions, which include crushing fines and prison sentences.

Employer -sanctions law, which is the main thrust of my practice, has exploded since the Obama administration began to crack down on employer compliance. In the last two years, the government has collected, nationwide, $28.7 million in civil fines.

Here are a few more examples, among thousands:

• Recently, longtime Mexican artisans at a Greeley-area business were confronted by government officials with "mismatches" in their Social Security records, on file for years. That day, the employees vanished. More than 250 years of experience were lost, and a business collapsed, in one afternoon.

• In 2012, five loyal, skilled workers from a legendary Castle Rock restaurant were deported and the business fined nearly $50,000 for improper worker documentation, despite no prior history of violations.

• A Colorado couple started a business in their basement. They hired workers but failed to fill out I-9 forms, only discovering, years later, that the documents are mandatory. The designated manager, an 80-something grandmother, was threatened with criminal charges.

Each of these heartbreaking examples springs from one fundamental instinct: to better oneself and one's family. The desire to work is intrinsically human, and it is recognized as part of the pursuit of happiness, an inalienable human right.

Not all kids who play baseball are uniformed with fancy script across their chests, traveling to $1,000 instructional camps and drilled how to properly hit the cut-off man. Some kids just play to play.